Today we played several “stop and go” games. As we’ve talked about in this BLOG before, the concept of “stop and go” is an important one for your child to learn. The ability to control our movements is important in many situations, including walking in a big city and when we are among a large group of people. We walked, tiptoed, and galloped to drum cues listening carefully for the “ready stop” which indicated time for us to stop our movement. You can play this game at home with your child by moving to the sounds of Home CD 1, track 10.
The statue game reinforced the “stop and go” concept today. Children love to “pose” and were given ample opportunity to pose as imaginative statues. Each got to choose what type of statue they wanted to pose as. We sang Walk All Around (Home CD 1, track 22) and posed at the “Stopping Points”. We also used the music “Gavotte in G”, which became the magic that allowed the statues to start moving as it played, but the magic was gone when the music stopped, and they had to freeze in their new position. This is another fun game you can play with your child at home, thus helping to solidify the learning taking place through Kindermusik!
Be sure to read Family Activity #6 for ideas of ways your child can make an original city statue. Allow them as much independence and individual choice, expression, and personality as they can to design and put together this work of art You may even want to take a tour of the statues around town, esp. down Lemon Street before starting your project. Or maybe looking at some famous statues online, or in a resource book at a library. Be sure to bring your child’s work of art to class next week to display!